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What does grace look like?

This month’s story of grace by Center Director Jim Krisher

I was privileged to spend three weeks this past July on a mission trip to Zagreb, Croatia, where I worked as a volunteer with Jesuit Refugee Services. I had daily contact and rich conversations with many beautiful but suffering people in three refugee camps there.

I met men and women and a significant number of unaccompanied minors, most from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, as well as smaller numbers from other troubled countries in the middle east and beyond. They had fled their countries, leaving behind homes and possessions to escape the horrific violence of war, or religious persecution, or ethnic hatreds and extremist threats. Many had already lost loved ones or entire families. Their stories would break my heart, and I felt so helpless because I couldn’t make things better for them. I only hoped my caring and attention to their stories brought them some small comfort in the face of so much tragedy. What does grace look like in the midst of such sadness and pain?

There was the twenty-three year old man who had to flee from Bangladesh because he was Hindu, and some extremists among the Muslim majority were killing or maiming the Hindu minority. His father was already dead, and his mother was in the hospital after having her arm chopped off by the extremists. Yet this wide-eyed guy with a gentle smile still nurtured hope for a better future for himself and reunion with his mother in a safer country. That’s what grace looks like.

There was the young married couple, also twenty-three, who had secretly converted to Christianity in Iran, where that is a crime punishable by death or decades of imprisonment. They had fled when their conversion began to be whispered about and the religious police learned of it. I sat in their little room at the camp in awe of the passion in their voices as they spoke of Christ and their dedication to Him. That’s what grace looks like.

There was a young Muslim man from Aleppo in Syria, who had fled the war there with his pregnant wife and their three-year old daughter. His city, he told me with his scant English vocabulary, was “all gone” and the people of the city were “all dead.” Yet here he was in his shabby refugee camp, holding his little girl on his lap and smiling at her with such tender fatherly love. It could be months of waiting to hear if they will be granted asylum or not, yet for him the important thing was the well-being of his family and looking toward a new life for them. That’s what grace looks like.

And I could go on and on telling such stories.

These refugees are the victims of human sin, driven away from their homelands and often shut out by countries that could provide them safety and assistance. Yet God does not turn away from them. Deuteronomy tells us that God loves the foreigner and seeks justice for those on society’s margins – and that we, as God’s people, are commanded to do the same. (DT. 10:18-19)

Not only does God care deeply about refugees and how they are treated, but God’s Presence shines through their often tear-filled eyes. As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

Online library search is now available!

Our library of over 10,000 books is now available by clicking here. Search our library from the comfort of your home. Our group of volunteers have been working tirelessly with their fearless leader Molly Wilber, MLS to help us in this transition.

Check whether or not we have a particular book by title, author or subject. You may place a temporary “hold” on an item, and will also remind patrons of overdue books.

We are certainly excited to share this great improvement with the community!

This month’s submission comes from Jim Krisher, the Center’s director.

He was sitting opposite me, a recently retired man telling of the unexpected turns in his life. It had been years since I’d last seen him, and in those years a lot had happened.

Chief among them was a major stroke that had severely affected his wife’s memory. While there were no outward changes in her physical abilities, mentally she was greatly diminished, unable to remember conversations from one minute to the next, prone to hoarding even bits of refuse, and needing near constant supervision.

He also explained how unable he was to connect with God in any of the ways he had connected in the past — through formal prayer, church involvement, spiritual reading, etc. He had not the least desire to even try to do those things anymore, and was concerned about what that said about his faith and relationship with God.

“Where I meet God is in caring for my wife, in loving her. My whole life revolves around her. People ask me all the time how can I do it, or if I’m resentful of the demands this makes on me. But I don’t resent it at all! In caring for her I experience God’s caring for me. God is so real for me in those moments it almost overwhelms me!”

Pictured here are members of our Board of Trustees. We are so grateful for the faithful commitment, knowledge and leadership that guides the ministries offered here at the Center. We will certainly miss Kay Satterfield (not pictured) who is relocating. Thanks Kay for sharing your many gifts with the Spiritual Renewal Center!

What a wonderful opportunity for folks who previously experienced the Spiritual Exercises to stay engaged and in contact with one another. Pictured here is a group who meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month to share their faith experiences. The group is facilitated by Fr. Lou Sogliuzzo. If you’ve participated in the exercises and would like to learn more about the group, give Fr. Lou a call at the Center 315-472-6546.

I was doing a retreat day in early Lent for inmates at one of the medium security correctional facilities here in Central New York. I had started with a meditation I’ve often used in prisons, in which I invite the guys to re-enter a p
ast experience of being loved by another person. It’s a meditation that has led men to tears, and the sharing of powerful transformative moments in their lives.

On this occasion, one of the men told of how in his prayer he had been brought back to the day when he was convicted in court. The jury had returned a guilty verdict, and he was bustled outside to the waiting police car. He told of how as he was being put into the vehicle, he looked up to see his mother, his grandmother, and his sister standing off to the side – all three of them gazing at him with great tenderness, and they were sobbing. In that moment, he said, he felt such a powerful sense of their love for him that it almost overwhelmed him.

“It’s just so incredible,” he said, “that on that darkest day of my life I would be given such a beautiful awareness of how much I am loved.” It was clear that God had deeply touched him again through the memory of it, and he was visibly moved.

It was three years ago this month of May that the Spiritual Renewal Center moved from its long-term location on Court St. to our present site on Lancaster Ave. The move has proved providential in so many ways as staff and participants at the Center have enjoyed the beautiful and easily accessible new space. The ministry has grown considerably in this short time, and God continues to richly bless our work and render it fruitful.

I am well aware that nothing at all could happen without the generous support of all of you, who have believed in this ministry and helped us grow over now 38 years and counting. In this season of renewed life, I pray that you might enjoy the Presence of the Risen One who is our joy!